Ra-Hoor-Khuit Network's
Magickal Library

Wiccian

THE WAXING MOON
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Casting the Circle, Diane Stein

This first third of the lunar month is from day 1 of the cycle (the New Moon) until Day 11 (the first day of the 'Full Moon phase, three nights before the Full Moon). The Waxing Moon is the time of the Maiden, the girl before menarche. The Maiden goddess is young, inquisitive, strong in her innocence, and not knowing that life has limitations. In the Motherpeace tarot deck, she is the fool, the child of all potential and all power, or the Daughter of Swords, the Amazon maiden. she is the tomboy climbing tress, delighting in her tough young body. She refuses the word "no".
Anything is possible to the child, and anything is possible (to begin) in the Waxing Moon phase. Some Goddesses representative of this third of the cycle are: Artemis (Greece), Diana (Rome), Pele (Polynesia), Anahita (Persia), Oya (Africa), Hathor (Egypt), Lucina (Italy), Blodeuwedd (Wales), White Buffalo Calf Woman (Native America), Cheng-O (China), and Bast (Egypt). Also for the Waxing Moon phase are foremothers known as warrior-women and freedom fighters. Some of these, of many possibilities, are Harriet Tubman, whose running of the Underground Railroad freed kore than 300 slaves before the Civil War; Boudica, a Celtic woman who led her troops across Europe and nearly defeated the Roman Empire after her daughters had been raped by Roman soldiers; or Joan of Arc, the young Wiccian woman who fought to free France and was betrayed. This is a phase for daughter Goddesses, daughters and amazons, with an occasional mother in evidence - to protect them.
Use white candles on the altar for the Maiden Moon, she knows more of milk than of blood yet. If there are flowers on the altar, try white ones or pastels, innocent blooms like white 0daisies of paperwhites. Remember also, that the cycle has just changed, and the innocent daughters bring with them the hint of the Crone. Some of the daughter Goddesses are also underworld  Goddesses, like Persephone, Pele and Oya. They have just been reincarnated, just come from the Crone. Don't underestimate their power.
Women's bodies at the New Moon are in the last stages of menstruation or have finished bleeding. This is in the ideal, of course, before the advent of electric light and high-stress living skewed women's cycles so that they no longer bleed together. Some women now ovulate on the New Moon; others have rotating cycles with more or less days than the full lunar month, so that their bleeding moves through all the phases. Each woman's personal New Moon can be a different date. But in celebrating the New and Waxing Moon, women celebrate the cycles of the Goddess, who is all women. Some women who begin to do moon rituals discover their cycles changing to fit the moon's. 
Anne Kent Rush in her book Moon Moon (New York, Random House, 1976) describes ways to self-regulate women's moon cycles by use of controlled light. Whatever the individual woman's body cycles, the metaphor for the New and Waxing Moon is the ending of  menstruation and the new cycle.
At menstruation's end, the woman/Goddess is renewed. She has completed the last full cycle, and if she has bled she is not pregnant. If she is past the age for bleeding, her body still knows the cycles and she may feel closer to the moon phase dates. 
If she is under the age of nenarche, she is just learning about her body, and the changes in it to come. On the date of the New Moon, Persephone returns from the underworld. Hera and Diana bathe in their sacred pool, becoming virgin again. The word virgin in the ancient world had nothing to do with sex or lack of  it; it meant a woman who was free, who owned her body in herself.
Physically, women's bodies at the Waxing Moon are preparing to ovulate again. Menstruation has released unfertilized the last cycle's ripe egg, and now another one is readying for release. 
This in the menstrual cycle is called the follicular stage. A new egg is readied by one ovary, stimulated by a complex variety of  hormones. All of a woman's eggs are present in her ovaries at birth. The egg will leave the ovary and follicle at ovulation, traveling down the fallopian tube to the uterus. The uterus is preparing a new lining to receive it, if it is fertilized and implants. The implanting is a pregnancy. At this stage, the follicle and egg are not ready for fertilizing yet, but the follicle is forming and leaving the ovary. The uterus, cleared of  its old lining by menstruation, begins to rebuild.
Women's moods and minds are as connected to the moon as their bodies are, bodies and Be-ings are one. The Waxing Moon is a time for creativity and new beginnings, for starting new things. It's a time for activity, outward-directed and increasingly so as the moon waxes. The energy of the New Moon is strong and often erratic, but it becomes a steady pull of increasing strength as the days move toward the Full. Women use the energy for doing things, for manifesting ideas into new realities. This is the time to take risks, go for change, to make things, write things, start things. The high. Start new books, new jobs, relationships, or living in a new home at the Waxing Moon phase. 
Emotions are stable after the first day or two, and positive.
Waxing Moon rituals take advantage of the energy flow for hope, new growth, and reaching out. Rituals enter the labyrinth or spiral, the darkness of the not-yet-visible moon at the New, and emerge into the increasing light of the Waxing phase. Things planted (seeds, actions or ideas) at the New Moon emerge in Waxing to move toward harvests at the Full. Wishes made at this time of the cycle come true at the Full Moon. This is the time of newness and emerging. The Waxing Moon is the Maiden, just starting on her journey to maturity, her whole life's potentials yet unknown and to come.

The Waxing Moon - A ritual of Beginnings

Spend time at the Waxing Moon making a group altar, or alone making or re-making a permanent altar at home. In group rituals, place a give-away blanket in the center of the circle or in another room. Each woman brings a natural object or something she no longer wants to put on it. In solitary rituals, make a gift to oneself instead or dedicate a piece of moon jewelry, and place it on the altar. Do this ritual on the New Moon or anytime in the Waxing phase. Be sure to include the Self -blessing.

need

white candles and white flowers on the altar.
Incense. Vervain for healing and protection, frankincense for spirituality, rosemary for purification, or rose for love. Or use a bowl of water for sprinkling instead.
Give-away blanket. Each woman brings an item to give away.
Moon Poem or Invocation. Use the one below or choose another.
A bowl of earth or cauldron and a bowl of seeds or dried beans.
Oils for the Self-blessing and a mirror wrapped in cloth.
Optional; Play the song "Every Woman born" from Ruth Barrett and Felicity Flowers" audio tape, Invocation to Free women (Circle of Aradia Publications, 4111 Lincoln Blvd. #211, Marina del Rey, CA 90292). Or another piece of music, poetry.
Matches to light candles and incense, charcoal block for loose incense, circle-casting wand.

outline

Light candles.
Purify - With incense skmoke or by sprinkling.
Cast circle/Invoke the Goddess for each element and spirit. 
These are amazon foremothers, with two Mother Goddesses (Demeter and Hina) to watch over them.
Earth - Demeter, whose daughter returns at the New Moon (Greece).
Air - boudica, amazon who fought for women's freedom (Celtic).
Fire - Harriet Tubman, who risked her life to free others (Americans).
Water - Joan of Arc, a witch who fought to free France.
Spirit - Hina, Mother of the Moon (Hawaii).
Each woman in the circle invites/invokes another hera. Keep going round till the women run out of names - of women living or not, mythological or herstorical, including relatives or friends living or dead.
Invocation - Read the following Moon Poem Invocation or choose another written piece.

Waxing Moon Invocation
Goddess of our mothers, our foremothers and our selves,
The Moon is new and we are new within her.
Together with the moon we make beginnings,
Set goals and lay the roots for our achievements
To fulfill when the time and moon grow full.

We are women of peace 
Attaining our goals in peaceful ways.
What we ask for benefits us and benefits the earth and all.
We accept the challenge of manifesting our dreams.
We accept the responsibility for our choices.

We are careful what we ask for,
Knowing it may happen;
We are careful what we ask for,
That we violate no one's free will.

We have the awareness of women
And the power of women;
We are each the Goddess and the changing moon.

With the New Moon we begin and plant our dreams, And watch them grow and ripen.
As we will it, so it is.

We are the New Moon.
We are Goddess.
We are the changing world.

Body of ritual - Take the bowl of seeds and the cauldron or bowl of earth from the altar. Pass them around the circle clockwise, or lace them in the center of the circle. Each woman in her turn says;
"These are my beginnings. I plant these seeds for growth on the waxing Moon. I want ...................... " (She plants a seed in the bowl or cauldron.). " I have (She repeats her want)." She makes one wish each time the bowls go round the circle; they continue to go around for as long as women have wishes. Keep the wishes short.
The high priestess says:
"Hecate becomes Persephone on the Waxing Moon, and Demeter regains her daughter. Women come from the past, to now, to the future, making all things new. All dreams come true."
Self-blessing - (See page 58) This is a good time to use a variety of magicakal fragrant oils to fit women's wishes and needs, and a good time to use the cloth-wrapped mirror.
Raise energy - Use songs or chants, or visualize the dreams planted in the cauldron coming to fulfillment. Direct the cone of power to the wishes manifesting (or there equivalents or better, according to free will - says Marion Weinstein), and to the earth for healing. This is a quiet, gentle ritual, not for drums or howling at the moon.
Ground.
Optional - Play the song, "Every Women Born" from Ruth Barrett and Felicity Flowers' audio tape, Invocation to Free Women, or play the whole tape, or any other parts of it.
Open circle.
Hugs.
Give-away.

suggested chants to use in this ritual include:

We all come from the Goddess,
And to her we shall return,
Like a drop of rain,
Flowing to the ocean
or
Holy Maiden huntress,
Artemis, Artemis
new Moon come to us.

Shining silver wheel of
Radiance, radiance,
Mother come to us.

Ancient queen of wisdom,
Hecate, hecate.
Old one come to us.

Holy maiden huntress,
Artemis, Artemis,
New Moon come to us.
or 
A river of birds in migration,
A nation of women with wings.

This page last updated: 02/27/2018